


Falling To Ashes

by Vaal



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Drama, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Chronological, Slow Build, Spoilers, Tragedy, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 16:24:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5134544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaal/pseuds/Vaal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles marks the first smile, the first laugh, the first joke in his memory. Each one that follows makes him more determined to be there. He is, after all, Peter’s safe place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling To Ashes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nezstorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezstorm/gifts).



> Here's to one year, you giblet. I hope you cry.
> 
> **EDIT:** MAR IS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING AND MADE THIS BASED ON THE STORY. ISN'T IT AMAZING? OH, MY GOSH, IT'S SO AMAZING. PLEASE LOVE IT AND GO PRAISE MAR ON [TUMBLR](bxdcubes.tumblr.com/)  
> 

Stiles was born in this glade. It's where he's always lived, and _will_ live until the day he dies—it's both his home and coffin.

He's spent forty years watching over this forest: is intimately familiar with the flora and fauna that reside within the boundaries of what he's affectionately come to call his own.

Every time a plant or animal dies, he feels the loss acutely, an ebb of life and death, always in fluctuation. In this sense, he is tied to the earth, just a passive observer.

Ever since he opened his eyes, he has been a watcher: a caregiver who provides a home to an assembly of different species from the woodlice that tickle his toes to the eagles that perch on his shoulder to the moss that clings to his clothes and tinges them green.

Stiles has always lived deep in the heart of the forest. It's unusual, though not uncommon, for humans to pass by. He's mostly visited by small woodland creatures that like to climb his bark and sit in the branches, chattering happily as they go about their lives.

Stiles likes squirrels best—they always have the most interesting stories to tell, and aren't reticent with the gossip like the old owl that likes to sit in the topmost boughs.

Every year in the spring, he gets to watch as does bring life to a tiny army of wobbly, spindle-legged fawn that like to butt against him in late summer, hoping to shake free clusters of the red berries Stiles keeps out of reach for just this reason.

He feels a fondness for their antics and often indulges in their cries of frustration, dropping bushels for them to delight in. He takes pride in the fact that they seem to favour him over many of the other trees in the forest.

Life is peaceful in his little glen, and though he sometimes wishes for more intrigue in his everyday life, he's content with what he has.

(Until he isn't anymore.)

-

Stiles is woken in the middle of the night by the sound of a human approaching. Uneven footfalls and expletives shake the quiet of the forest. There is no malicious intent surrounding this human, so Stiles curls back up and watches the human from above.

The man is old, but stands proud. What hair he has is peppered with streaks of silver.

Stiles doesn't know where the humans live, though it must be outside the forest's boundaries. It must be, otherwise he would feel it—would know exactly where they come from. More and more frequently, there have been disturbances in his glen, human men and women, children and dogs.

The increase in activity has captured his interest; he likes to watch them as they exist around him. This time is no exception, and Stiles stretches out on his branch, propping his head up on a hand as he observes.

The man pauses in Stiles's little glen, breaths solidifying in the chilly fall air as he exhales.

He's impressed that the man made it so far into the forest so late at night—has heard that it's no small distance from the very edges of his senses to where he lives, always rooted to the same spot no matter how he wants to travel, to see other parts of the forest.

"Fuck," the man snarls when he's finally caught his breath, and Stiles is on the verge of calling out to him when the man straightens up and strides toward Stiles with a purpose.

One of his more prominent roots sticks out of the ground, thick and just the right angle for a family of rabbits to have made a home out of it. They mostly leave the rest of Stiles's underground root structure alone, so he lets them stay. The man heads toward it now, pulling something long and shiny from his hip as he falls to the ground by the root.

Stiles, curious, climbs down a couple of branches to see what the man is doing.

Then, he experiences a pain like none he's ever felt before. It's a pain dissimilar to the pounding of a woodpecker drilling a home into his trunk, different from the feeling of beetles tearing strips of his bark for nest material.

For all intents and purposes, it feels like his arm is being cut off, an inferno of flames licking up his body from the hacking, sawing motions of the man at his base.

The pain only intensifies the longer the man is at it. He can feel the sticky ooze of sap and the dribble of water over the newly exposed wood as his vascular bundles are severed.

Stiles can't think of a reason why this man would have a need for this part of him.

Finally, the pain overcomes him, and he slips away from the world of hurt he feels.

Before he's totally lost, he hopes that the man gets what he needs, but also that he never returns.

-

Stiles wakes to the sound of a pained yelp and the smell of ozone suffusing the air. He stretches, yawns so wide he thinks his jaw will crack, and finds that the thing that’s disturbing his nap is a human child.

Except he's not.... There's something slightly different in the boy's energy signature, something about the brush of his aura that makes Stiles think he's something more—something like Stiles, but not like him at the same time.

It's the first time he's ever felt something like it coming from something that looks so human.

He's felt the deep pulsing thrum that sometimes comes from the other side of the forest and the occasional creature that stumbles upon him, but never like this, and never so close.

He slips down the branches of the tree for a better look.

The kid, because that's what he is, is red-faced and wears an expression far too serious for however old he must be. He's frowning down at his hand, an angry cant to his eyebrows that makes Stiles want to laugh.

He watches as the kid reaches out again and jerks back as he comes into contact with the same barrier that kept him from making contact before.

Ah, Stiles thinks. This is what must have woken him up.

The kid jumps back with a startled cry, and this time, Stiles can't help the laughter that bubbles up. The flock of sparrows resting on his branches ruffle their feathers and take flight, chirping angrily at him for disturbing them. Sparrows are so touchy.

The kid flushes angrily and turns to walk away, shoulders hunched over.

"Wait!" Stiles calls after him, swinging down from the branch as he gets himself under control.

He normally doesn't talk to his visitors, but there's just something about this gloomy kid that makes him interested. In the time he's spent tethered to the physical manifestation of his body, this tree, he's never met anyone that's like him quite in the same way as this boy seems to be.

Squirrels and deer are great and all, but a guy can only suffer so many conversations about where you've buried your nuts before going a little crazy.

"I'm sorry, come back," he says, and smiles when the boy turns to stare at him.

"What _are_ you?" the boy asks snootily, and Stiles shrugs.

"What are _you?_ " He counters, grinning when the kid huffs at him but takes a couple steps closer. He's almost close enough to touch the trunk of the tree, but careful not to.

"I'm Peter," the boy spits out grudgingly, and Stiles grins as he gives his own name.

Peter doesn’t seem to impressed with him, but doesn’t turn to leave again, either.

“Well, Peter,” Stiles says, and settles on the lowest branch he can. “Where are you from?”

Peter sets his jaw, like he doesn’t quite trust Stiles. He sniffs and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Other side of the forest,” he says huffily.

“Oh,” Stiles says. He doesn’t know what else to say.

Peter doesn’t seem inclined to keep the conversation going, but fidgets with the dirt under his feet. If there’s one thing Stiles can’t stand, it’s silence when he could be talking.

“What’re you doing all the way over here?” he asks.

“Running away from home,” is his dispassionate response.

“Huh,” Stiles hums. Then, “How’s that working out for you so far?”

“What does it matter to you?” the kid challenges. “What are you, anyway? You aren’t human.”

Stiles stares at him blankly for a few seconds. He’s never really thought about what he is before. He’s just Stiles. He’s always been just Stiles.

“Dunno,” he says at last. “I’m me. What are you? I’ve never met anybody like you before.”

“My mom says I’m not supposed to tell,” Peter says sullenly. He sits, though, just at the periphery of the barrier that apparently separates them, knees almost brushing against the bark. He’s close enough that Stiles can feel the electrical charge in the air straining against Peter’s skin.

“Come on, you can tell me!” Stiles cajoles. “It’s not like I have anyone else to tell—I can’t even leave this tree!"

“You can’t?” Peter asks, peering at him from the ground. The sun’s out, so he has to shield his eyes as he looks up.

“Nope!” he replies cheerily, grinning down at Peter. “Stuck like the moon in the sky! Can’t go more than a couple of feet away.”

“That sounds boring.”

“You have _no_ idea,” Stiles says, and can’t quite control the amount of emphasis he puts on the words. It makes Peter huff a breath through his nose, though, so that’s probably progress. The kid hasn’t emoted much since he stumbled across Stiles.

For being so young, he’s pretty good at staying upset.

“Well, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s your loss. I’m really good at keeping secrets, you know. What’s it like on the other side of the forest?”

Peter squints up at him like he’s trying to decide if Stiles is serious or not. It’s pretty unnerving—he has no idea what to expect. He’s relieved when Peter apparently gives up, relaxes so he’s leaning his weight on the arm stretched out behind him, and starts talking.

“We have a house right where the trees end. Talia always complains that—”

-

Somehow, talking to Stiles seems to help, and as the sun starts to set, Peter heads home unprompted.

Peter visits again after that. It takes him two weeks, but when he does, it’s with a frown on his face. Stiles asks what’s wrong, but they end up talking more about what life outside the forest is like. After that, Peter visits again, and then again, and then again.

Stiles eventually learns that Peter is a werewolf, and that he’s most likely a tree spirit. He also learns that Peter has an older sister named Talia, who sounds pernicious and selfish. Stiles can’t tell if that’s her natural character, or just the way Peter describes her in all of his eight year old honesty.

Stiles has to admit that it’s nice having a regular visitor. He learns a lot about the world outside of his little glen, and is amused by Peter’s fanciful descriptions of things like cars and buildings—things Stiles has never seen before, and likely never will.

Slowly, the frequencies of the visits increase, and Stiles learns more and more about Peter and his home life.

Peter is innocent.

Stiles doesn't realize just how innocent he is until he starts to change.

-

Peter is ten when he realizes he's different. It's a subtle enough divergence from the way everybody else is, but once he realizes it, it's like a gaping chasm that separates him from the rest of the world.

He doesn't know anybody else that's different like him.

He tries to ask Talia, because sometimes it seems like Talia knows everything, but she sits him down with all the disdain of an older sister and patiently tells him that everyone is unique and of _course_ he's different, loser.

It doesn't help, mostly because that wasn't what he meant by "different", but Talia won't hear any more of it after that, and he knows going to their mom won’t give him any straight answers, either.

His difference, what sets him aside, isn’t a physical disfigurement or something that’s incredibly obvious. He sees it more and more in his everyday life—in class, on tests, when he talks to other kids, and especially when he talks to adults.

Peter doesn’t know when it started or what it is, but he’s infinitely curious about what makes people tick—what makes them uncomfortable, what makes them unnerved. He watches people when he can get away with it, obsessed with understanding why people do the things they do.

Peter is different from everybody else. He’s distinct. In a way, he’s better than all of them in their ignorant, self-indulgent lives.

Kids no longer try to talk or play with him. He spends most of his recess and lunch breaks by himself. It’s okay, though, because he watches people, and it’s easier to watch when you aren’t being watched yourself.

He prides himself on knowing things—particularly, in knowing all the right things at all the right times. It annoys Talia to no end, but it makes everyone else uneasy around him.

Peter likes to be aware.

Maybe that’s why what happens a few years down the line surprises him so much.

-

Humans come and go—Stiles likes to watch them when they encroach on his glen. Some just pass by while others linger. His is a particularly beautiful glen that, in summer and autumn, make a great picnic spot. He’s spent many hours watching humans, listening to their idle chatter and envying their vivacity, their ephemerality.

Some are content to spend short stints of time in his inanimate presence, but others come at him with knives or sharp rocks and carve all manner of shapes into his skin. After a time, when his sensitive flesh has recovered and the marks no longer hurt, he marvels over, and comes to appreciate them.

He is old, and has been bound to his tree for many years. He has many scars.

-

Stiles watches Peter grow up. He arrives in Stiles’ glen a young boy, all chubby cheeks and full of contempt for his sister and parents.

Slowly, the baby fat melts away and he grows up and becomes lanky. He broods a lot, and Stiles often spends the afternoon listening to Talia’s latest proclivities in the saga of unfair sibling abuse. He also gets to hear about the people in Peter’s life—his parents, schoolmates, people he’ll never meet from a town he’ll never see.

It fascinates him nearly as much as it does Peter to hear about what people think and say and do. He’s curious by nature, and has always had a weak spot for humans. He likes hearing the stories that are happy—they make him feel good. Peter is good at noticing those interactions, but he’s even better at noticing when someone’s hiding something.

Peter always sits close when he visits, sheltered from the wind and rain by Stiles’ overhanging foliage. He always sits as close as he can get without touching.

One day, Peter shows up with a dichotomous key for plants, and they spend a lot of time getting lost in it until they get a definitive “rowan” for an answer. Peter’s quiet for a long time, then, before he shrugs.

“It makes sense,” he says. “Werewolves are allergic.”

Stiles laughs uproariously at that. The thought of Peter being weak to anything is hilarious. Peter is the strongest person Stiles knows. Considering his social pool is limited to a very exclusive, VIP party of one, that may not say much, but Peter always puts out an aura of infallibility—it seems wrong to think of him with hives, or uncontrollable itching.

It’s funny in an entirely different way—a way that makes Stiles smile bitterly to himself when Peter isn’t around—that their friendship seems almost cursed from the start. After all, what’s a friendship without touch to bond them together?

-

The world outside of the glen is always in motion. Somehow, without much rhyme or reason, things seem to move in a way he has difficulty understanding.

There are deaths and there are births. Peter’s grandparents die, and Talia is starting a family.

Peter feels the rift that has always underlain their relationship is splitting wider as time goes on. This development seems to be wedging that apart dramatically.

“It’s like everyone thinks she’s perfect,” Peter tells Stiles. He’s laying on his back, one arm stretched behind his head, a pillow. “Like she’s golden and nothing she does is wrong.”

Here, Stiles gets the sense that Peter is freer than he is elsewhere. Here, he can share his thoughts unfettered. It warms Stiles’ heart that Peter is so comfortable in his presence.

“What makes you say that?” Stiles asks. He’s hanging upside down from one of his branches, seeing how long he can go letting the blood rush to his brain before he gets light-headed and has to swing back up.

“Laura. She’s become a teen pregnancy statistic, and she’s getting congratulations like she’s doing a good job throwing her future away. If it was me, I would be being lectured. If I had a kid at eighteen, they’d probably make me give it up.”

“Do you... _want_ kids…?” he doesn’t know if he wants to hear the answer to that. From what he’s heard about Talia, it sounds like there’s never really been any question about her abilities as a parent.

He can’t see Peter with kids, though. Peter is too full of life to give that up to take care of a child. Peter is too vibrant—he burns too brightly and lives too fully to dedicate that to anybody else.

Peter is also only eleven.

Stiles is starting to feel faint. He can hear his pulse drumming in his ears. He sits up and clings to the branch he’s sitting on so he doesn’t fall off like an idiot. Peter never lets him live it down when he pulls stupid stunts and ends up embarrassing himself, even if he’s the only one to see.

Peter stares at him for approximately ten seconds before his face scrunches up.

“ _No_ ,” he says emphatically, turning to stare at the canopy of leaves above him.

“So, what’s the problem?” Stiles asks when he can see again.

Peter shrugs half-heartedly from where he’s laying.

“Dunno,” he says. “It just feels like I don’t fit anymore. I don’t belong.”

Stiles has nothing to say to that.

Eleven months later, Derek is born.

-

Slowly, as if he were a flower (a thought which Stiles can never tell Peter he’s had), Peter blossoms from an awkward teenager who doesn’t know what to do with himself into a man. He grows upwards and outwards, both with muscles and personality. He lights up the air around Stiles and makes him feel giddy.

Time passes. It seems like the years fly.

When Peter is around, Stiles overflows with energy. His fingertips tingle, his hair feels static, the nutrients he sucks up through his roots taste richer, and his leaves strain to grow bigger, to grow _more_. It doesn’t matter if it rains or if it shines, the world is vibrant and alive, and things seem realer and larger than life.

When Peter is happy, he’s happy. When Peter is frustrated or sad or upset, Stiles’ heart goes out to him and he wishes more than ever that they weren’t limited by touch.

When Peter is around, Stiles is bursting with life.

When Peter is around, he feels almost human.

-

Every time Peter visits, he has something new to talk about.

Stiles can’t help but be jealous of the world that sits outside of his forest, that beckons him from beyond the furthest reaches of his little clearing. He wants to experience what Peter talks about, wants to see and touch and taste and feel things that he can’t here.

He wants to observe humans and watch them interact and go about their daily lives without the constraints of fleeting coincidences every couple of months.

No matter how Peter feels about the subject of his comments, he’s passionate about the world he interacts with. Stiles is jealous of the people he meets, the places he goes. He wants to spend as much time with Peter as he can. He wants to be introduced to a whole new meaning to life and manner of living by Peter. He wants to experience things firsthand and see things for himself.

For the first time in his life, Stiles wants more than he has.

-

In autumn, when his berries pop into existence, Peter likes to squish and mash them between his fingers, staining them orange. Stiles complains while Peter laughs at him and wipes the juice off into the grass, or on his thighs.

For all that seems wrong in Peter’s life outside the glen, here, with Stiles, he seems happy.

-

There's a fire somewhere—far away from where Stiles is, but he's being fed hushed whispers of information that are passed along from the periphery of the forest, a long chain of information transported from individual to individual until Stiles hears it in the ruffling of his leaves, can taste it in the water in the ground.

There's a fire somewhere, and it's bad.

Peter drags himself, broken and bloody, to Stiles and lays dying at his roots. There isn't a single thing Stiles can do. He's helpless but watch.

It's an awfully bitter feeling.

-

Peter doesn't die thanks to his supernatural healing ability, and Stiles slowly—passively—facilitates nursing him back to a somewhat decent state by asking favours of his many forest friends.

Birds drop seeds, nuts and berries off in the glen while mice and other small animals feed him drops of dew from blades of grass and moss.

Peter slowly recovers. The burns reduce in size, and then fade all together. In time, he becomes mobile and is able to feed and take care of himself, though he hardly speaks to Stiles anymore. He's a different Peter than the one Stiles has watched grow from a little boy into a man.

They both have a fear of fire.

It's the one thing they share that Stiles regrets.

-

Derek is still alive. Of all the family Peter has, Derek is the one who makes it through.

When Peter returns to Stiles, it’s two months after he got up, barely healed, and walked away without a word.

Stiles spent those months worrying whether Peter would come back, straining his network for any disturbances in the forest at all.

He’s aware, then, of the fight that happens. Second-hand relays relate to him what takes place. He sees through distorted views how Peter drags Kate into the woods and slaughters her slowly. He watches as she’s rent apart fleshy strip by strip until she oozes blood and fear so profusely that Stiles can taste it dozens of miles away.

He feels phantom pressures along his skin as droplets splatter the ground, absorbs the ferrous compounds in her blood as it taints his water source for days after Peter is through with her.

He watches Peter in all of his primal, animal rage and bloodlust, fury radiating from him like heat off a fire. He is terrifying. He inspires awe. He is awful.

Stiles withers with winter. His leaves fall, and the berries he produces are small and more bitter than he can remember them ever having been in the past. The wintering birds no longer eat his berries, and the deer no longer visit him.

When Peter returns, Stiles is completely alone.

-

After killing Kate, Peter is different. He’s not the same in many ways, but now he talks less. Stiles tries to fill the silences with chatter, talking for two. Slowly, he coaxes responses out of Peter.

They don’t talk about Kate or Derek.

What they do talk about eventually becomes a facsimile of how things were before. Peter compartmentalizes, and piece by piece, he returns to Stiles. He comes out of his shell a little more every day.

There’s a closeness between them that wasn’t there before.

Stiles marks the first smile, the first laugh, the first joke in his memory. Each one that follows makes him more determined to return the goodness Peter had before. He is, after all, Peter’s safe place.

-

It's just after Peter crawls to him, fresh from the fire and close to death, that Stiles realizes he loves this man.

He supposes the revelation is a long time coming, because there isn't a spark of anything that accompanies the realization, just the knowledge settling deep in his bones.

He's as sure about the fact that he loves Peter as he is about the aquifer that feeds him—keeps him and the rest of the forest alive.

It's a strange feeling, though, to know that what he feels is love. It's like there's a pressure in his chest sitting on his lungs, making it hard to breathe.

Stiles doesn't have to say anything, because Peter seems to know in the way his smiles curl his face into something of a likeness of that sweet, innocent boy Stiles knew what feels like lifetimes ago.

It's clear in the way Peter always returns, even though Stiles knows it would be easier to not come back.

It's clear in the way Peter could easily find someone in his own world to love.

It's clear in the way that Peter could have a family, but doesn't.

Most of all, it's clear in the way that Peter always finds a reason to stay close, but is careful to keep his distance, unable to touch but clearly wanting to.

-

Peter knows what's about to happen the minute he feels the air change as the hunter draws the stake out of the bag.

He’s been told this day would come. He’s known for a long time that this day would come.

The air is heavy and still in the wreckage of the warehouse, chilly in the early spring morning. Peter can see the sun creeping up into the sky, bathing the horizon in a pink and cream the colour of the blossoms that bloom around this time of year at the base of his favourite tree.

He thinks of Stiles, a prisoner shackled to his tree, tethered to the glen for the rest of his life.

He feels regret that he'll never get to say goodbye, never get to see Stiles's face again—will never be able to hear his laugh or see his smile, experience his worry or watch tears drip off his cheeks as he cries over the balance of life and death.

Peter closes his eyes and tries to imagine all of those things and more: tries to remember every moment he has spent with Stiles—Stiles who has watched him grow up, who has waited for him every day and was always so happy to see him regardless of how nasty Peter got or how scathing his comments.

He thinks of all the times he used his absence as a form of punishment, for the both of them, and how he hated himself for it. Peter still hates himself for it, perhaps even more now than before. In his youth, his naïveté, he never truly believed that his time with Stiles would end.

It seems incomprehensible that it's been nearly three decades since he first stumbled into the glen, angry and sad and about to have his life upended.

He doesn’t listen as Gerard tells him about the night he went into the Preserve just after arriving in Beacon Hills and learning of the Hale pack—doesn’t pay attention to his ravings about it being an ironic twist of fate that the very cut of wood this stake is fashioned should be the from same tree Peter has come to equate with happiness and love and purity.

“Fate” Gerard calls it. Maybe it is.

Peter thinks of Stiles: how he’ll never see Peter again, but will wait, day after day, for something that will never come.

It kills him to think of Stiles losing faith—of thinking that Peter no longer cares, or worse yet, growing older and bitter with each day that Peter doesn’t show up. He’ll go on without knowing anything.

He has never been stabbed with rowan before. It’s a pain that he can feel in each cell in his body as it comes into contact with the toxic substance and rips him apart. It strips him of all other sensation until all he can focus on is the throbbing, burning, gnawing sensation as it rots him from the inside, festers in his blood, poisons him and makes him scream in agony.

When he dies, he thinks of Stiles.

In the distance, the Preserve burns.


End file.
